


(almost) destiny

by adhdmollymauk



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, Other, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 00:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16608032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adhdmollymauk/pseuds/adhdmollymauk
Summary: He doesn't quite fit into his body, keeps expecting to see his eyes flash white in the mirror and maybe it's just his imagination but his eyesight is still a tiny bit sharper than it was before. His teeth don't feel like they belong in his mouth, a little like they do right after a cleaning, and he keeps running his tongue across them trying to feel a sharpness that may or may not still be there. But no matter how often he mentally checks for the symbiote, he can't feel anything, only negative space that he never used to notice.Yet another take on the whole "how they got back together" missing scene at the end. Eddie does a lot of introspection (read: emotional breakdown) and things, somehow, work out eventually (read: get pretty gay).





	(almost) destiny

**Author's Note:**

> i just had to get this out of my system okay
> 
> **trigger warnings** : a good part of this fic is focused on a breakdown and describes negative self talk and depression stuff pretty vividly. i'm really not sure how to warn for specifics but it gets, like, heavy, so be careful if you're not doing too well today. BUT it's like. cathartic happy-ending vent fic.

Anne's calling again, another voicemail to add to the pile of notifications he's saving for never. It'll be the same thing as the last one. Careful concern, "just checking in to see how things are," dancing around about seven different topics that are way too big for a thirty second sound byte to hold. He appreciates it, really. It's just that right now his game plan is pretty much "do anything and everything to avoid thinking, period," and talking about How Things Are definitely does not fit into that.

He turns the phone all the way off and scrolls through a listicle about the 32 signs of something or other. He's not sure how long it's been since he got home, or even how much time passed between the fight and waking up in the hospital and going back, trying to find the exact spot where they'd fallen, find any trace of

**15 Gifs You'll Understand if You've Found Your Soulmate,** the next article proclaims. Eddie closes the tab and goes back to video game theories on YouTube.

He's almost out of frozen depression meals and junk food, but apparently he won't have to live in this crap apartment much longer, because of circumstances he's also trying not to think about. Processing things is for fully functioning adults, not whatever the hell he is right now.

It's really only been a couple of days but it feels like a year. Since. It's stupid that he can't even start to think about it without forcing his mind to go somewhere _anywhere_ else but he can't stop starting to think about it and somehow this feels worse than losing everything did and with this disjointed hurtling train of thought the thin barrier he's set up is officially broken. Great.

Theoretically, maybe, Venom could have survived somehow and maybe even could manage to find his way back. Eddie isn't allowing himself to hope for this possibility, because if it doesn't happen it'll be worse. If it doesn't happen maybe it'll mean that Venom _is_ fine and just doesn't want him back. Which in the cosmic scheme of whatever is a really fuckin' dumb thing to be getting all depressed over, if he's honest. Like, _oh, no, I was one of those guys in horror movies who gets possessed by a freaky alien and the alien left me alone, and for some reason this really upsets me instead of being a HUGE RELIEF_ _like it would be for ANY NORMAL PERSON._

The spiral is probably just going to happen at this point but Eddie half-heartedly tries to watch a sports game on TV and is so out of it that he genuinely isn't sure which sport is being played.

The thing is, his brain insists on telling him because this train IS going to wreck the shit out of itself no matter what now, that being Just Eddie doesn't feel right any more. He doesn't quite fit into his body, keeps expecting to see his eyes flash white in the mirror and maybe it's just his imagination but his eyesight is still a tiny bit sharper than it was before. His teeth don't feel like they belong in his mouth, a little like they do right after a cleaning, and he keeps running his tongue across them trying to feel a sharpness that may or may not still be there. But no matter how often he mentally checks for the symbiote, he can't feel anything, only negative space that he never used to notice.

He's never given aliens or superheroes or whatever supernatural forces are out there much thought. Most things exist, probably, and he just kind of rolls with whatever, he's never been one of those people who really _wanted_ something like that to exist or to be part of it. And now he's been a--god, what would you even call what they are together? A monster? A new San Francisco cryptid? What, a superhero? And he's never really believed in destiny either but it was so goddamn easy to just go with everything because there was part of him, _just_ him, that felt like for the first time ever this was exactly how things were supposed to be.

Goddamnit, he really misses the bastard.

Okay, so yeah, a lot of the time Venom had been an insufferable pain in the ass. But also, weirdly enough, sweet and earnest and caring and yeah _okay_ had no business being that attractive for being made of mostly slime and teeth. And it had been nice--okay, it had been fucking incredible having someone else in his head all the time, weird as that sounds. No time for, well, this shit. Eddie knows himself well enough to know that left alone and unchecked for too long he's a self-destructive dumbass and really probably he's the kind of person who should be Supervised at All Times. He _wants_ to be, wants someone there to tell him when he's being an idiot and get him out of depression spirals and drown out all of the bullshit clogging up his brain.

It's taken him this long to notice that the sport he's watching is being broadcast in Hindi, which he does not speak, but at this point he's mildly focused on whatever they're doing with the bats and doesn't want to turn it off. He enjoys a blissful few minutes of turning off the part of his brain that's about to have a full-on breakdown in favor of trying to Google the rules of cricket and absolutely failing to understand any of them. Then he just sort of cries for an indeterminate amount of time and, at some point, falls asleep with his face shoved into the pillow, trying to remember what it felt like to not have to be in control.

 

When Eddie wakes up his hand is curled around something small and dark. His eyes are blurry and he's got a pounding headache, so it takes several seconds to even process this or remember anything about where he is or what's happening or why he feels like utter shit.

"Venom, wha're you...." he starts to say. It's about now that the rest of his mental processes kick in, and he shoots upright so fast that he slams both his head and elbow into the wall behind the bed. The pain doesn't even register.

"V, talk to me, are you real? Did I break down so hard I'm for real hallucinating this time or is this real." Even as he's saying it he knows, can feel the now-familiar presence of Venom settled somewhere along his collarbone. He feels weaker, smaller, but he's definitely there.

_**are you crying. dumbass.** _

"Shut the fuck up," Eddie says, through tears. "Where the _hell_ did you go, I thought you were dead you asshole!"

_**dormant. resting. had to... shut off.**_ Eddie can feel his frustration at not being able to form more coherent thoughts, explain it better. The symbiote sends a tangle of images, a second of searing pain, desperation to stay with his host, a retreat into dark corners and complete oblivion to heal. It's terrifying, something he's never done. Something he could have avoided, if he'd done any number of other things, chosen a new host, even temporarily.

"Jesus," Eddie says, overwhelmed with the strongest rush of emotion he's felt since he proposed to Anne, and just kind of buries his face in the tendrils of Venom still wrapped around his hand.

_**dumbass**_ , the symbiote says again, and doesn't mean it in the slightest.

Later neither of them mentions the soft kiss on what passes for skin, or the gentle caress of a thin tendril across tear tracks. Eddie takes them to the Ghirardelli cafe for a gigantic chocolate sundae, which they have to get to-go because if Venom were even a tiny bit stronger he would currently be eating the entire contents of the store, and then they both take their own versions of a nap.

_**here,**_ Venom says before they go to sleep, and forms a little onyx ring around his finger, set with something that could almost be opal. _**so you know.**_ _Know I'm here, know I care, know this is real_ , he does not say, but Eddie knows.

"Where did you learn what rings looked like, what the fuck," Eddie says in a laughably futile attempt to distract the symbiote from seeing him crying again.

Venom does the alien equivalent of an eye roll and shows him an image, overlaid between Anne's memories and his, of the two of them at the jeweler's. _**easy,**_ he says.

Oh. Eddie really isn't sure if he knows what those rings are supposed to mean and decides that right now is not the time to find out, so he settles for just "Thanks." And if he happens to press a kiss to the ring before he falls asleep, well. That's just exhaustion and his memories getting mixed up, probably.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr @ [rogueacademic](http://rogueacademic.tumblr.com) and you're always welcome to shoot me fic prompts or headcanons, i love these useless bisexuals
> 
> i've got some uhhh longfic in the works i just had to Project Heavily before my brain would let me yknow, get to it
> 
> as always comments fuel me and you are also very welcome to send your thoughts as an ask or IM on tumblr, i am literally always open to scream about venom with people


End file.
